[An Nahar] Ben Affleck is taking his name off the list of possible candidates for U.S. Sen. John F. I was in Vietnam, you know Kerry's Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, the Senate's current foreign policy expert, filling the vacated wingtips of Joe Biden...seat, which would be open if the Democratic senator from Massachusetts is confirmed as secretary of state.Hey! That's a coincidence! I'm not, either...
Affleck says in a Monday posting on his Facebook page that while he loves the political process, he will not be running for public office.

Speculation about the Cambridge, Mass., native rose slightly when he did not completely rule out a Senate bid during an appearance on CBS' Face The Nation on Sunday.

In his Facebook posting, Affleck says he would continue working with the Eastern Congo Initiative, a nonprofit organization that helps direct humanitarian aid to the war-torn region, and for other causes.

#2
I would advise Ben to go for it - the US Debt-to-GDP is already well over 100%-n-steadily increasing. Sometimes its good to put in a NG wid little to no political background, as oppos to a LT Politico whom is more a static bureaucrat than a progressive innovator.

The four officials supposedly out of jobs because of their blunders in the run-up to the deadly Benghazi terror attack remain on the State Department payroll -- and will all be back to work soon, The New York Post has learned.

As the Instapundit has been noting, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been unavailable for comment due to a variety of medical ailments. I think the latest one is a fever blister...

The highest-ranking official caught up in the scandal, Assistant Secretary of State Eric Boswell, has not "resigned" from government service, as officials said last week. He is just switching desks. And the other three are simply on administrative leave and are expected back. The four were made out to be sacrificial lambs in the wake of a scathing report issued last week that found that the US compound in Benghazi, Libya, was left vulnerable to attack because of "grossly inadequate" security.

State Department leaders "didn't come clean about Benghazi and now they're not coming clean about these staff changes," a source close to the situation told The Post, adding, the "public would be outraged over this." In response to questions from The Post, the State Department would only reissue the carefully crafted statement put out last week.

Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton "has accepted Eric Boswell's decision to resign as assistant secretary for diplomatic security, effective immediately." What Nuland omitted was that Boswell gave up only the presidential appointment as assistant secretary, not his other portfolios.The other officials -- Deputy Assistant Secretaries Charlene Lamb and Raymond Maxwell, and a third who has not been identified -- were found to have shown "performance inadequacies" but not "willful misconduct," [Accountability Review Board head and retired ambassador Thomas] Pickering said, so they would not face discipline.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) told The Post this is "yet another ruse about the tragedy of Benghazi. State Department officials proclaimed . . . that heads would roll . . . Now we see that the discipline is a lie and all that has happened is the shuffling of the deck chairs."

Any chance that a Repub senator could place a hold on Kerry's nomination until the State Department actually documents that the four have been dismissed from government service?

#4
Any chance that a Repub senator could place a hold on Kerry's nomination until the State Department actually documents that the four have been dismissed from government service?

No, not if Reid wants the confirmation vote held (would require a rules change, but that can be done by Dem majority only.) Confirmation would require some Republican votes though, to overcome filibuster, unless those rules were also changed.

#6
"Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country."

Karl Kraus

These politicians are endangering the lives of our people and are refusing to be held accountable to the people. They are incompetent, they are cowards, they are lieing to the Amerian people like no other establishment since 1776. They are doing to us what our enemies wish they could do to us themselves. The result is the same.

Maybe they and the enemy are now one. Regardless, due to the damages done to America as being the same, Judgement passed on them should be the same, IMHO.

Excellent move by Abe. We are now at the Keynesian (PBUH) end game. Only problem is that it won't cause inflation, deflation will carry on its merry way. As Korea sees its export being threatened by the weaker Yen, it too will weaken its currency. As will China then India and the S.E. Asian Tigers. Then onto to Europe and then to...
This will make the Fiscal Cliff look like a blip on the road. Think Coyote Fall.
The Japanese yen has dipped to a 27-month low against the US dollar amid speculation that policymakers will take steps to weaken the currency.

It was trading close to 85.84 yen against the US dollar in early Asian trade, the lowest since September 2010.

Japan's new Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has promised steps to weaken the yen to help revive Japan's sluggish economy.

He has even suggested that Japan's central bank should print "unlimited yen" to help stoke inflation.

#1
I'm confused. When they say that the Yen dropped are they saying that $1.00 buys fewer yen than it did? Or is a "weaker" yen one where $1.00 buys MORE yen than it did?

I thought that the stronger the currency the MORE of a different currency it bought which would mean that the lower the yen number the stornger the yen but this sounds backwards. Of course the lack of labeling on the graph and the lack of definition on the pronouns doesn't help.

#4
The graphic at the article shows that the Yen now buys less of a US dollar than it used to, i.e. it takes more Yen to buy one dollar.

Translated into policy terms, this is an attempt to prop up Japanese exports to the US (dollar buys more goods), to compete against US industry (dollar-denominated goods are more expensive) and to try to get the Japanese economy moving again.

She's done more to damage the economy with her insane policies than Obama, Wall Street and Bernanke combined.
Lisa P. Jackson is stepping down as administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency after a four-year tenure that began with high hopes of sweeping action to address climate change and other environmental ills but ended with a series of rear-guard actions to defend the agency against challenges from industry, Republicans in Congress and, at times, the Obama White House.

Ms. Jackson, 50, told President Obama shortly after his re-election in November that she wanted to leave the administration early next year. She informed the E.P.A. staff of her decision on Thursday morning and issued a brief statement saying that she was confident the ship is sailing in the right direction.

She has not said what she intends to do after leaving government, and no sucessor was immediately named, although it is expected that Robert Perciasepe, the E.P.A. deputy administrator, will take over at least temporarily.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.